It comes as a major personal disappointment when a book that includes 'sex' in the title intimidates rather than excites at first sight, but Jasper Sharp's 416-page tome of densely packed text is daunting.
Sharp argues, however, that his book on pinku eiga, or pink films, fills an important gap and that such a vital part of Japanese cinema needed to be examined in depth.
'No one had really done it before, and certainly there was nothing written in English about the evolution of the industry,' he says. 'I figured if I was going to write a book about the subject, I might as well cover all bases.'
The result is a fascinating look at Japanese culture, society and radicalism through the prism of the sex film industry by Sharp, co-editor of the Japanese film website Midnight Eye. 'I'd been writing about Japanese cinema for a while so I was aware of the large role erotic cinema played in the industry.'
Many younger directors use the genre to tell cheaply their personal stories or express their social or political opinions. Sharp spent two years with directors Koji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi, who were both major players in the 1960s and used the exploitation formula to air their own left-wing political commentary.
Adachi was linked to the Japanese Red Army terrorists who attacked Tel Aviv's Lod Airport in 1972 and had only recently been released when Sharp met him. Wakamatsu's Secret Acts Behind Walls was shown at the 1965 Berlin Film Festival and addressed some divisive issues, including the Vietnam war. Both men are given chapters of their own.
Sharp says the genre is generally misunderstood outside Japan. 'Very few of these films have been seen elsewhere, so there's a question of what is typical ... and also how the pink film survived side-by-side as a sub-industry of mainstream Japanese cinema,' he says.